Rock City takes King Gizzard’s Lizard

Float like butterflies – King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard
Source: HeraldSun

Who the hell has the audacity to open a record with a 16 minute jam that has become the soul-quenching Australian song of the year? The noive!
Deniliquin and Anglesea’s finest mutants, that’s who. King Gizzard and The Lizard Wizard do things their way and Head On/Pill is that jam.

“It started off as something much simpler,” grins McKenzie, who looks like a cross between an androgynous Eastern Bloc Model from 1974 and a member of Poison. “You started off with that riff,” multi-instrumentalist and level-head Eric Moore chips in.

“It was vaguely conceptual, we wanted a bit of journey. We were exploring longer song structures,” Moore says, sipping on an ever-present beer.

“We wanted to try recorded something as a seven-piece – we’ve never recorded all together – that idea was the catalyst,” says McKenzie. “We based the whole record around that song really.”

Rock City posits that McKenzie sings “I ate the room I ate the room I ate the room” but StuManChu corrects, “I sing ‘I ate the wrong pill…I ate the wrong, I ate the wrong, pill pill pill, pi-iiiil, pill…’ A few people have thought ‘I sing I ain’t no wrong.’ Sing the wrong lyrics, it’s fine, we’re not going to get angry at anyone."

Mondo mondegreens. As an aside, Peter Kay’s telling pork pies.

King Gizzard and The Lizard Wizard’s debut record 12 Bar Bruise scooped the best Independent, Heavy, Hard Rock or Punk Album at last week’s Carlton Dry Independent Music Awards (“This is cool…but mostly funny,” McKenzie commented in his acceptance speech) and since that record they’ve already unleashed two more, the spaghetti-noir Like The Sky, narrated by Broderick Smith (the Dingoes, and Ambrose’s dad) and recently, Float Along/Fill Your Lungs.

Respectfully, these guys plunder our pub rock heritage, re-conjuring the melodic fuzz of The Dingoes and The Nazz. 30 Past 7 is a jellybean drifter boasting sitar and guitar sounds Kevin Parker would accidentally gawp at.

Acting as benevolent dictator, “Stu’s definitely the main songwriter then we jam it out,” explains Moore. “Ambrose and I wrote Let Me Mend The Past,” McKenzie says of their latest single which has throwbacks to Phil Spector style doo-wop ditties (da da dum da da dum).

Having always aspired to tour with The Drones – TICK – King Gizzard now have loftier ambitions. Ambitions that are matched by a $ 50,000 bonus as first winners of Carlton Dry’s inaugural Global Music Grant, also won at the ‘Awards last week.

At the “AIR” Awards they played an unannounced song to close the night, knocking down Let Me Mend The Past. But their regular set at the moment sometimes consist of only two songs: Head On/Pill and Sea of Trees, including a reprise of the spangly, Kashmiri naan guitar line from Head On/Pill.

“I think it’s a cool thing to do to tie the set together,” says McKenzie.

The identity of the LP “changed a heap,” Moore jumps in. “My mum and dad went overseas for two weeks so we set up at their house in Deniliquin and our mate Jarrod from Eagle and The Worm came down with his awesome recording gear – what a legend – he was pressing the buttons and giving the vibes,” he says.

“30 Past 7 and Mystery Jack are the only ones that made the album,” McKenzie adds. “They were all great recordings and we’ll chuck them on something one day but they were a different vibe, closer to our older stuff,” Moore says.

“The last song we did was I’m Not A Man Unless I Have a Woman, we needed a banger, some extra lightheartedness,” McKenzie explains. I’m Not A Man…comes in at first drop, something to ease you back into the record after the 16 minute bitcoin torrent. “Everyone can relate to not feeling whole without their other half there.”

Shortly, they’ll be floating on the friendly skies, head on travel pillows as they prepare to take their psychosomatic, addict insane blues to foreign shores.

Batten down the hatches, world, the ‘Lizards will be king.

For a chance to win one of two double passes to their album launch this Saturday, email KING GIZZARD’S A SEVEN PIECE WHO LIKE CRAZY ATES.

Corner Hotel, 57 Swan St, Richmond, Sat, 8.30pm. $ 20, www.cornerhotel.com

Bullish Type
Just as Robin Thicke chopped his locks and reinvented himself as a suave pop lothario on 2013, Sydney’s Andy Bull has experienced the quickening, sharpened his look and sound and come at us this year like Ryan Gosling updating Glen Medeiros for the Instagram Generation.

Self-produced and self-made, 2013 is the Year of The Bull.
He describes his latest single Baby I Am Nobody Now, as “manic, bipolar and slightly disturbed.”
The leftfield, dirge-y pop gem has taking him from the fringes and into the firing line. Lovers, haters, everyone’s gonna know about Andy Bull before the year is out.

The multi-tasker has a multifarious band “champing at the bit to go on tour. I’m playing a couple of keyboards, we have triggers to wrangle the synthesized elements without having to use backing tracks. I trigger vocal glitches like an MPC player. It can be chaotic…but it’s cool to do that,” he says.

Crowds love the fact it could all go horribly right/wrong. “Yeah, yeah!!” he chirps like a jockey he’s just been told he’ll be riding a favourite in the Melbourne Cup. “I like wrestling for control with the machines, the live show should be another world.”

Bull put out his debut album We’re Too Young in 2009, followed it the next year with his Phantom Pains EP, toured, and then went back into the studio to start his next record, due for release next year. “I’ve set up a sound with the two singles, I like warbly, seasick synths, organic, crunchy drum sounds, 808s and fuzzy stuff,” he says. “I like stuff that’s a bit threatening.”

The two singles thusfar have been Keep On Running and the aforementioned Baby I Am Nobody Now. The latter is “someone lamenting the fact they’re not involved in the scene that’s happening. I guess with FaceBook and Instagram – even though I don’t consider those an influence on the song – you get to see a constant stream of people’s lives, these slivers that are self-paparazzi,” he says, which leads to discussion of image-crafting.

“The chorus came with me ironically singing ‘I’m one in a million’ and then it flips back, it’s like ‘Doesn’t the world know I’m amazing? But I’m a loser, I’m on my own’,” he explains.

The cut-through line is “Baby, I’m ten out of ten” which is delivered with Yeezus-conviction. Bull recreates the line thrice over the phone, sounding more like Daniel LaRusso yelping at Mr Miyagi. All these ‘80s references are carefully chosen, Bull’s sound echoes that era’s dedication to melodies, undeniable pop hooks and well-ironed shirts. For Triple J’s Like A Version he chose Tears for Fears’ Everybody Wants To Rule The World and it became one of their most popular ever, 145,000 YouTube views and counting.

Baby I Am Nobody Now has found its way into the ears of someone else who was already 15 years into his career when the ‘80s robot danced into the room. “Todd Rundgren is weird and creative, he’s an iconoclast,” Bull says. “We were looking for somebody to do a remix and Josh from my label knew I loved Rundgren and he called me on my birthday – he waited to surprise me – and told me Rundgren had agreed to do a remix. I know he’s done stuff with Tame Impala but it still feels like he’s out in space somewhere.”

Northcote Social Club, 301 High St, Sun and Tue, 8pm, $ 18, www.northcotesocialclub.com

Jez Do It
Jezabels copped a bit of a backlash when they won the 2011 Australian Music Prize for Prisoner. As if they’d care! The Sydney titans will support Depeche Mode on a UK tour, have done a record in London with producer Dan Grech-Marguerat (Lana Del Rey).
Their new song The End is Cranberries versus Deborah Conway.

Laneway Festival, FCAC, Footscray, Feb 1, www.lanewayfestival.com.au

Tongue Twister
Teeth and Tongue has a new cut too, Good Man, which has PVT echoes and the sinning synths Andy Bull has been employing recently. Catch her at Boney.

TEETH AND TONGUE – GOOD MAN from Lucky Dolphin on Vimeo.

Boney, 68 Little Collins St, city. Nov 23. www.boney.net.au

Dropping Science
Fancy a gig that will challenge/enthral/petrify? Kangaroo Skull (My Disco dudes), Jake Blood, Justin Fuller, Miles Brown, Complete (Heirs, debut performance), Prolife, Vacuum (members Nun and ASPS) play Science Club V: Dark Matter.

Here’s 11 minutes of Kangaroo Skull at the magnificent Phoenix Public House (RIP).

Liberty Social, 279 Flinders Ln, city. Sat, 10pm-verrry late, $ 10.

THREE GIGS WORTH YOUR TIME OF DAY/NIGHT

Sampology
Last time Rock City saw Brisbane DJ/VJ Sampology play he jumped out of the blocks too quickly and didn’t read the crowd. It was an outlier. The other 6 times I’ve seen him spin/scratch/beguile the shaggy-haired kid’s been incredible. Blunted new single Dancehall Queen has the right bounce/charisma.

Brown Alley, city, Sat, 10pm. $ 25/$ 35. www.brownalley.com

Whitley and Seagull
Quick review of the tour, according to the man himself, Whitley: “The shows so far have sounded pretty spesh with Seagull and I smashing out emotional middle class white boy blues.” His Even The Stars Are a Mess album’s a grower.
Caravan Music Club, Oakleigh, Thu, 8pm; Howler, Brunswick, Fri, 9pm, $ 27+bf. www.facebook.com/whitleysounds

The Ancients
With a rad new record, Night Bus, just in time to put a spring in your heels, this M-town quintet have done a Gaslight Radio and released a record that hitches on the leaves. Catch them playing live instore on Friday night. Just like last Friday’s Montero gig it’s the best way to start a weekend. Beer!

Polyester Records, Flinders Ln, city. Fri, 6pm, Free.

6 Clips That Will Work Over The Suspension in Your Ergonomic Chair

Love Is Lost – James Murphy (Hello To Steve Reich by James Murphy)

Tremulous (Feat. Christa Vi) – Ben Salter

Omaha – Rockwell and Groom

She – I Know Leopard

In Heart’s Wake – Skydancer

The Skydancer Project // INHEARTSWAKE from UNFD on Vimeo.

 Always – Panama

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